Supermarkets thrive amidst cash crunch

For close to two weeks now, people have struggled to get cash, and spend hours outside banks and ATM counters. As a consequence, the footfall at supermarkets has increased. many families who normally buy daily essentials from local shops, have made supermakets their destination due to the convenience of cashless transactions.Debjoy Sengupta | TNN | November 22, 2016, 12:40 IST

PUNE: On Sunday evening, Umesh Gadgil and his family decided to drive to a nearby hypermarket at Nitesh Hub Shopping Mall in Mundhwa, to buy some grocery items.

On the face of it, this may not seem all that unusual, but for the Gadgils, it was only their second time at a supermarket.

“It was a bit confusing — we had to put pulses and vegetables in plastic bags ourselves, and get them weighed. We’ve never done this before. We generally buy grocery items from a local store near our house, but with the cash crunch, we thought it was better to come here and buy using my debit card,” said Umesh, who works as an assistant in a hardware store in Vimannagar. “It is quite unbelievable but this is only the third or fourth time that I am using my card to buy something. Both of us are a bit nervous,” he added.

For close to two weeks now, people have struggled to get cash, and spend hours outside banks and ATM counters. As a consequence, the footfall at supermarkets has increased. many families who normally buy daily essentials from local shops, have made supermakets their destination due to the convenience of cashless transactions.

A representative of Spar, a hypermarket located at Nitesh Hub, said: “Each day on an average we cater to around 800 customers, with the number going up to 1,300-1,400 during the weekends. With cash flow slowing down to a trickle, people are choosing to save what little they have. We have witnessed a 10% uptick in customers.”

The owner of a grocery store in Koregaon Park agreed. “I will not say that the business has come down drastically, but it has slowed down. I accept payments in cash only. Some of my regular customers too have not come to me in the past 10 days or so. People do come every day to buy a item or two, but those with long lists of purchases are not turning up. I am flexible when it comes to credit but it seems that people have some apprehensions,” the man, who declined to be named, told TOI.

For Saket Sapre and his wife, who run a mess service in Kalyaninagar, the supermarket is a better option at the moment. “We cater to 20 to 30 people around lunch time. While those numbers have gone down, we (still) need to buy a lot of vegetables every third or fourth day,” Saket, 45, said.

An employee of a Reliance Fresh outlet in the same area had similar views. “The number of people coming in has increased for sure and they mainly come as they want to save cash,” the representative pointed out.

Suresh Sinha and his roommates, who share a one-bedroom flat in the same area, also prefer supermarkets to local stores. “It is a bit far from our place, but then it is better to save the money we have and purchase items by card. One doesn’t know how much time will it take for things to turn normal,” Sinha, a call centre executive, told TOI.